


The Fruit of Knowledge

by Princip1914



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Aziraphale is just doing it for the Aesthetic (tm), Crowley the serpent, Fucking through the ages, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Melancholy, Other, a piece of meta in fanfic's clothing, although not physically a snake in this one, lets make love and not call it that, madame bovary - Freeform, the 19th century, the ineffable nature of the divine, the knowledge of good and evil and all sorts of other things, until he isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princip1914/pseuds/Princip1914
Summary: “What do you mean it’s on trial?” Aziraphale spluttered. “Books can’t go to court.”“Of course they can! And this one--” Crowley took his sunglasses off to wink at Aziraphale. “Most titillating text of the century. It’s harmful to the public good is what it is!”“What nonsense,” Aziraphale frowned. “Books aren’t harmful.”OR: In whichMadame Bovarysparks some uncomfortable angelic introspection.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 131





	The Fruit of Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even know. I think this is meta disguised as fic? I’ve had a lot of ideas about Aziraphale and banned books for a while now and they all sort of bubbled out of me in a very rough fashion after a conversation with some friends earlier today. Thanks, beans, for the inspiration!

“I’ve got something special for you.” 

Aziraphale looked up from his writing desk and smiled. Crowley was pink cheeked from the cold weather, hat in hand, fetching ginger sideburns on full display. 

“Here,” Crowley let a package wrapped in brown paper tumble to the surface of the desk, stood back with satisfaction to watch Aziraphale unwrap it carefully. 

A stack of magazines spilled out. “ _La Revue de Paris_ ,” Aziraphale read, sounding it out in a dreadfully English fashion. “My dear what’s this?” 

Crowley was practically vibrating with a secret excitement. “Something salacious for your library. Look inside, angel, it’s a new book in serials-- _Madame Bovary_ \--everyone’s talking about it. It’s incredibly rare to find copies these days, you’ve no idea what I had to do to get these.” 

“Thank you my dear,” Aziraphale pushed the magazines back across the desk, “but you ought not to have gone to all the trouble. If it’s causing that much sensation, I’m sure they’ll bind it as a book and I can buy a copy then.” 

“Ah, but that’s the best part,” Crowley grinned at him, the white, sharp fangs of a snake. “It’s never _going_ to be bound. The book is on trial this month, the censors are going to make sure it never sees the light of day. In a few centuries, this might be the only copy left.” 

“What do you mean it’s on trial?” Aziraphale spluttered. “Books can’t go to court.” 

“Of course they can! And this one--” Crowley took his sunglasses off to wink at Aziraphale. “Most titillating text of the century. It’s harmful to the public good is what it is!” 

“What nonsense,” Aziraphale frowned. “Books aren’t harmful.” 

"Aziraphale you know better than that.” Crowley sat down on the edge of the desk. “You collect the blessed things." 

Aziraphale sighed, thinking happily about the lovely embossed cover of a recently acquired edition of _Paradise Lost_. "They're so beautiful." 

Crowley swayed in front of Aziraphale, a serpent rising from a coil. "Yes, but have you ever thought about what's inside all these books?" 

"Well of course! Just last week I had to restore the vellum of a 13th century text. the poor thing had black mold!" 

"Not what I meant. Don’t be obtuse. I mean the _words_ Aziraphale." 

"Oh, indeed! Humans are quite clever aren’t they? Writing things down instead of just saying them out loud." 

"Yes but," Crowley inclined his head towards one of the groaning shelves in the corner, "have you ever thought, what's the point of all this--writing, reading? Humans subjecting themselves all the time to terrible hand cramps and eye strain and even worse--fines! Exile! Execution! Just for producing or owning some scraps of paper. For what purpose, Aziraphale? Haven’t you ever wondered?" 

"Well, I suppose…" Aziraphale's brow wrinkled. The pleasure he took in his books was mostly aesthetic. Yes, they were functional objects, but they were beautiful too. Why think about it beyond that? There was nothing wrong with liking beautiful things, liking beauty was practically in the job description for an angel. 

"I suppose it's so that they can teach each other things, so that one generation of humans can talk, as it were, to the next generation,” Aziraphale said slowly. “And of course, they write fiction too--harmless little stories about how people behave and why they make the choices they do, passing on knowledge from one generation to the next and oh--" Aziraphale broke off, looked around the shop with dawning understanding and mounting horror. “Oh Good Lord.” 

The leaves of the books on the shelves rustled, as if they were in an orchard rather than a stuffy shop with all the windows shut against the cold. The breeze that turned the pages carried with it the warm scent of jasmine. 

"Aziraphale, I swear I always thought it was on purpose," Crowley’s insouciant smirk had disappeared. He looked a bit shocked himself. "All this time out of the garden, and here you are, building another one and you didn't even know. I never would have teased you about it if I’d realized--" 

"Do you suppose," Aziraphale struggled to breathe against the rising tide of panic in his chest. He wiggled his fingertips. They still felt as full of grace as they had always been. "Do you suppose I am damned then?" 

The written word had called to Aziraphale from the very beginning, when it was just carvings on rock, etchings into clay. He had never examined the string that pulled him towards the increasingly complicated, incontrovertibly human, arrangements of letters. He had felt its tug and chased the pleasure of it without thinking, allowing himself to consider only this--the cool rasp of paper beneath his fingertips, the smooth leather of a neatly bound cover, the melodious harmony of iambic pentameter. Aziraphale liked the look and feel and sound of worldly objects, he liked to take pleasure in them. Crowley indulged him when he could, in books and in other things, and they didn’t speak about it afterwards. They never had, not in a thousand years. 

In a thousand years, Aziraphale had not allowed himself to think about what drew him towards human writing, to recognize it as the same sort of tug that pulled him, maddeningly, thrillingly, into Crowley's orbit whenever he was near. The demon was near now. His gentle sway had brought him close enough to touch. 

"The gardener whose job it is to tend the trees cannot be blamed if they bear fruit," Crowley said, swaying ever closer. 

"But I've eaten of it. I-- I don't just repair and maintain the books, I read them,” Aziraphale said, and then with a despairing wail, “for Heaven’s sake Crowley, sometimes I even _sell_ them.”

Crowley snorted. “Rarely.” 

“Well,” Aziraphale’s eyes flicked away from Crowley’s, which were filled with something too close to kindness for comfort. They settled on his lips instead and rested there. “If I haven’t fallen yet, I suppose another taste couldn’t hurt.” 

It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last time either. But, when Crowley leaned in to brush his lips against Aziraphale’s, when Aziraphale grasped more than a bit desperately at the demon’s cravat to pull him closer, when Crowley’s mouth opened against his, something sparked between them that hadn’t before--the distant flash of lighting far away on a desert horizon. Crowley’s tasted, as he always did, of something sweet and tart. Aziraphale only now permitted himself to recognize the flavor. Later, they lay together, still half dressed, on Aziraphale’s desk. Copies of _La Revue de Paris_ were strewn around and beneath them, somehow--miraculously, damnably--all fluttered open to the most obscene passages. Crowley stretched out one dark wing; Aziraphale sheltered beneath it, waiting for a roll of thunder that never came.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written very quickly and not beta’d. I’m sorry for any errors. 
> 
> I want you all to know that there was originally a crack epilogue for this fic where Crowley has to rescue Aziraphale from jail in France _again_ after Aziraphale decides _Madame Bovary_ is Good Literature (™) and needs to be defended. I didn’t write it because melancholy endings are my jam. 
> 
> The trial of _Madame Bovary_ was a real thing tho! Flaubert really ruffled some feathers with that one. 
> 
> Come enjoy more shenanigans [ on tumblr](https://princip1914.tumblr.com)!


End file.
